These Easy Garlic Green Beans are the perfect vegetable addition to any dinner. They take only minutes to make and are gluten-free and vegan.
It's always a good idea to keep super easy side dish recipes in your back pocket. Often, when I'm making dinner, I realize that I've completely neglected to plan or forgotten about making a vegetable or side dish. On these nights, I usually just end up slicing up some carrots and cucumber and serving them raw, and to be honest, my kids probably prefer this.
But, on nights when you want to step it up a notch and serve a vegetable that's actually hot, these Easy Garlic Green Beans fit the bill. Making these beans hardly takes any longer than peeling and cutting up carrots, and they're so versatile you can pair them with any main dish.
How to make Easy Garlic Green Beans
Making these delicious and versatile garlic green beans starts with trimming the beans. Just how much you need to trim will depend on how you purchase your beans.
If you purchase packaged green beans (eg. from Costco), they're likely already trimmed. However, I find that the ends are usually looking a little dry and trim a little bit off of most of them anyway.
If you purchase your green beans loose from the produce department or farmer's market, you'll need to trim off the stem end, and maybe a little bit off the pointy end too, if they're tough. If your green beans are very long, you might want to cut them in half for easier eating.
Now that your beans are prepped, it's time to get cooking. To get perfectly cooked beans that are tender but still crisp, I cook them in two stages but use only one pan.
The first stage involves steaming the beans in lightly salted water. Bring the water to boil in the pan. Add the salt and the beans, reduce the heat to medium, and cover the pan. Steam for only 3-4 minutes to avoid overcooking the beans.
Use a colander or mesh strainer to drain the beans and rinse them with cold water. Carefully dry the pan if any water remains in it. Add some olive oil and heat over medium. Add the beans, garlic, salt, and pepper, and cook for 2-3 minutes until the beans are hot and the garlic is fragrant. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Serve immediately.
Easy Garlic Green Beans Ingredients
The ingredient list to make these delicious green beans is short and simple.
- Green beans - if you buy loose green beans by the pound, either from the grocery store or the farmer's market, you will definitely need to trim them. If you buy packaged green beans (eg. from Costco), there's a good chance that they've already been trimmed. I still recommend taking a close look at them and trimming off any ends that are looking a little dried out.
- Water - Use whatever water you normally drink. Cold tap water is fine.
- Kosher salt - you will add part of the salt to the steaming water, and part to the beans when you saute them with the garlic. If you need to replace kosher salt with table salt, reduce the amount to ½ teaspoon total.
- Olive oil - or you could use whichever oil you prefer cooking with.
- Garlic - I recommend using fresh garlic vs pre-minced garlic from a jar.
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Lemon juice - fresh-squeezed lemon juice has the best flavor, but bottled lemon juice will work just fine too.
Want more vegetable side dish recipes?
Easy Garlic Green Beans Nutrition Notes
Most of the salt added during the steaming portion of the cooking process will be discarded with the water. To complete the nutrition information calculations, I estimated that half of the salt remains with the beans, which I think is a very conservative estimate.
This recipe is gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan as written.
Easy Garlic Green Beans
Equipment
- Large skillet
Ingredients
- 1 pound green beans
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt divided
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
Instructions
- Trim the stem ends from 1 pound green beans. If the other ends (the pointy ends) are tough or looking a little withered, you can trim those off too. Cut the beans in half if they're very long.
- Add 1 cup water to a large skillet and bring it to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and add the trimmed green beans and half of the kosher salt. Cover the skillet and cook for 3-4 minutes, just until the beans are bright green and starting to become tender. Immediately drain the beans and rinse with cold water.
- Carefully dry any excess water from the skillet, if needed. Add 1 Tablespoon olive oil to the skillet and heat over medium heat. Add the green beans, the minced garlic, the remaining half of the kosher salt, and ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. Saute for 2-3 minutes until the green beans are hot and the garlic is fragrant and just starting to brown. Remove the skillet from heat and stir in 2 teaspoons lemon juice. Serve immediately.
Nutrition
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